The top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer has resigned following an uproar over a headline bemoaning property damage incurred during the protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
The newspaper announced on Saturday that Stan Wischnowski, 58, was stepping down as senior vice-president and executive editor, after apologizing on Wednesday for the “horribly wrong” decision to use the headline “Buildings Matter, Too” on a column Tuesday. suggesting an equivalence between the loss of buildings and the lives of black Americans.
Lives matter, buildings matter, everything matters. The trick is to find the right balance. But current times and all that….
Dunno. When’s a wise time to state the obvious?
No doubt someone somewhere is wondering which he regrets most, the murder (if murder it was) of the chap in Minneapolis, or the burning down of the Glasgow School of Art. Which would he regret most, the destruction of the cathedral in Florence – or indeed the one in Ely – or the assassination of Al Sharpton?
There are those who whinge about the destruction of Dresden – the buildings I mean, not the people – who choose to ignore the Russian (or British or American) lives saved by having flattened it.
I’ll leave it to the others to wonder about the people who think the murder of the criminal is somehow not comparable to the annual hundreds of thousands of abortions that they warmly approve of.
Perhaps instead we should weigh the life of meth and synthetic smack-addled George Floyd against the life of retired police officer and general pillar of the community David Dorn?
According to BLM and its supporters, Mr Dorn’s life, and the lives of the others lost in a week of lawlessness, barely move the scales compared with American hero and future leader Floyd.
If we’re talking about buildings then I reckon the loss of the burned out affordable housing scheme was more severe for the community than the loss of a career criminal whose major achievement was in recent years was not getting caught.
dearieme June 7, 2020 at 11:37 am – “No doubt someone somewhere is wondering which he regrets most, the murder (if murder it was) of the chap in Minneapolis, or the burning down of the Glasgow School of Art.”
Would anyone miss the Glasgow School of Art? Or any modern British art school?
“Which would he regret most, the destruction of the cathedral in Florence – or indeed the one in Ely – or the assassination of Al Sharpton?”
Many places and objects have armed security guards standing outside, next to or near to them. Those guards will use their guns if need be. Because we tend to think that the Mona Lisa is more valuable and important than some toe rag who might want to steal it.
It is worse than this. A police officer is about three times more likely to be killed by a Black than a Black is to be killed by a police officer. The truth is that BLM has no credible basis. It is just an irrational hatred of Whites.
The journalists mistake was thinking that her editors would stand by her.
#BlackLi
vesMatterThe journalist underestimated the demand for orthodoxy.
dearieme, Dresden was a transportation hub; it was a very legitimate target.
(As was Guernica, but I’ll fight that one another day.)
As I understand it, Stalin specifically asked that Dresden be bombed as he saw it as a transport hub to the eastern front.
It seems there has been an edict to the MSM that the weekend’s protests in London have been ‘largely peaceful’ despite a couple of dozen coppers being injured.
The Guardian even continues to insist that the protests in the US have been largely peaceful, despite abundant footage of cities on fire across the nation.
I would like to thank middle class white leftists on both sides of the Atlantic for making me less racist. I hate them so much I barely have any left for the world’s swarthier scumbags.
Rodney King, Mark Duggan, Floyd. It’s weird how these wife beating drug addled career criminals inspire such posthumous “largely peaceful” riots. A nobler victim of police brutality couldn’t be found.
I was listening to Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast earlier and he and a heather Heying made some interesting points:
The anarchists are targeting Federal buildings. A Homeland Security contact in Portland reckoned that they been told that smoke and tear gas shouldn’t be used because of irritation to the lungs that could raise the susceptibility to C19. This was after 1,000 plus epidemiologists had written a letter saying the protests were more important than the virus and smoke and tear gas shouldn’t be used. (That letter’s doing the rounds on Twitter). This raises the threat of deadly force being used leading to a blood bath, playing in to the anarchist’s hands.
The rioters aren’t moving in to the housing areas because they don’t know who’s got guns.
Trump’s odd reference to the 2nd amendment the other day was a signal to his base that if they saw tanks out on the street they weren’t coming for their guns.
And one I’ve not heard before, but when they mentioned it it made sense: the 2nd amendment is there to protect and enforce the 1st amendment. This surprised me as they are quite liberal in te American sense.
Philip,
The traveller who met his maker a couple of years ago courtesy of his own screwdriver during an attempted burglary was eulogised by his family as being too good for this world.
“The traveller who met his maker a couple of years ago courtesy of his own screwdriver during an attempted burglary was eulogised by his family as being too good for this world.”
They were right, which is why he is burning in the 7th Circle of Hell as we speak. Best place for him.
philip, if you haven’t read Tom Wolf’s Bonfire of the Vanities I encourage you to do so.
Tom Wolfe. I knew him in the 1970s. Though I didn’t know he was a famous author. He was just a guy at the club.
“Would anyone miss the Glasgow School of Art?”
Dear God, man, it was – before it burned down – a gem by Rennie Mackintosh.
Fuck me, the denizens here can be an ignorant, uncultured shower. Positively Newmaniac.
Tom WolfE – read the book, but for God’s sake don’t watch the film (Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith) which is just awful.
dearieme – I think I’d give SMFS the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he was talking about the educational establishment rather than the building, which was (as you say) a wonderful thing.
jonny bonk- Joseph may have done but i think that aspect was emphasised after all the hoo har. In fact it being one of the few cities he hadn’t levelled yet Bomber was always going to obliterate it. His boss (forget his name) tried to get him to concentrate on Romanian oil fields, but when Winston suggested in Hof that Dresden was a bit too far Bomber’s boss offered his resignation in solidarity. (according to Anthony Beevor)